The African tulip tree in full bloom in the Bandra Kurla Complex in Bandra east.
Common name: African tulip tree, Fountaintree • Hindi:
Rugtoora रगतूरा• Tamil: Patadi • Bengali: Rudrapalash • Kannada: ಜೀರ್ಕೊೞವಿಕಾಯಿ, ಜೀರ್ಕೊಳವಿಕಾಯಿ Jeerkolavi kaayi,
ನೀರುಕಾಯಿ Neeru kaayi, ಉಚ್ಚೆಕಾಯಿ Ucche kaayi
One of the world's most spectacular flowering trees, African
tulip tree is a large upright tree with glossy deep green pinnate leaves and
glorious orange scarlet flowers. It may grow to 80 ft on an ideal site, but
most specimens are much smaller. The tree has a stout, tapering, somewhat
buttressed trunk covered in warty light gray bark. The lateral branches are
short and thick. The 1-2 ft long opposite leaves, which emerge a bronzy color,
are massed at the ends of the branches. They are composed of 5-19 deeply veined
oval leaflets. The horn shaped velvety olive buds appear in upturned whorls at
the branch tips. A few at a time, the buds of the lowest tier bend outward and
open into big crinkled red orange tuliplike bells with red streaked gold
throats, frilly yellow edges, and four brown-anthered stamens in the center.
They are followed by 5-10 in green brown fingerlike pods pointing upwards and
outwards above the foliage. Each of these pods contains about 500 tissue papery
seeds. The tree flowers in spurts all through the growing season, but peak
bloom is usually in the spring.
Info sourced from Flowers of India
